Weyanoke and Westover; Wm. and Mary Qrtly., Vol 10, No. 2

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Weyanoke and Westover

   William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 2
   (Oct., 1901), pp. 99-102.

                     WEYANOKE AND WESTOVER.

Extract from History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in
the United States.  By William Dunlap.  Published 1834.  George P. Scott
& Co., Printers, New York.

   I had become acquainted at Williamson's (Norfolk, Va.) with a very
fine young man by the name of Douthat, who had married a lovely woman,
and was settled on a fine plantation up James River, hear the house of
his father-in-law, Mr. Lewis, the proprietor of Wyanoke, famous in early
Virginia history*.  I had promised Douthat to visit Westover, the name of
his residence.  In the beginning of February, Williamson went up to
Douthat's.  On the 11th of February my young friend, John Williamson,
called to show me a letter from his father, saying that Mr. Douthat was
much disappointed at my not coming; had prepared a room for me, and en-
gaged several portraits for me to paint, thus joining profit to the
pleasure of visiting the hospitable planters of James River.  Williamson
pressed my coming up immediately, and I made my arrangements for so 
doing.  On the 15th I went up the river in a good steamboat, passed
James Island, where all that remains of the old Jamestown is a ruined
belfry of a church; about sunset passed Wyanoke, where the English made
their second attempt at settlement, and after dark, arrived at Westover,
the third place attempted+.  The whites chose an island and two Presque
isles, as affording easier defence against the savages.  Douthat come
off in his boat, and escorted me to his splendid mansion.  I found here
my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, and the warmest welcome from Mr.
and Mrs. Douthat.  The next day we proceeded by water to Wyanoke, the
plantation of Mr. Lewis.

   This place, so well known in our early history as the second spot
selected by the English for their settlement, is nearly surrounded by
the waters of the James River.  At the time of my visit it formed a
model for a well-cultivated Virginia plantation,
______________________________________________________________________

   *Robert Douthat, Esq., married Eleanor, daughter of Fielding Lewis,
son of Col. Warner Lewis and Eleanor Bowles, of Warner Hall, in 
Gloucester county.
   +This history is incorrect.  Kickotan, Charles City Point, Bermuda
Hundred, Henrico and other places were settled before Weyanoke and
Westover.

Page 100

as worked by slave labor, under a wise and humane master.  I have re-
marked in my journal that "I should not have known Virginia if I had
not come up James River", for Norfolk and the neighborhood is by nature
a part of North Carolina, and although my friend Williamson's plantation
at Ferryville (once the site of a town, with a church long abandoned,
and a court-house, where Patrick Henry was heard, and where now a part
of the plantation negroes reside), although Ferryville was a source of
delight to me and many more, its master's chief occupation being in 
Nolfolk and the soil very poor, it did not represent the seat of a
Virginia planter.  At Wyanoke all was in high cultivation and perfect
order.  The overseer was intelligent, and was directed by the master.
The house servants, though occupying a building separate from the
mansion, as is the case on the plantations, and even in many instances
in the towns of Virginia, were orderly and fully employed in the duties
imposed by the owner's hospitality.  I had lived well all my life
(except with old Bobby Davy in London) and certainly the luxuries of
Norfolk, and the good cheer at my friends Williamson did not mislead me
in my estimate of living at Wyanoke and Westover, but I could not avoid
looking with suprise at the well-covered table, especially at breakfast,
where the varieties of hot breads of the finest kind exeeded anything I
had met with.  Indian corn bread in three or four shapes, all excellent;
buckwheat cakes; cakes of different kinds made of the best wheat flour
in the world, and loaf bread of the same, all hot and all as perfect in
the cooking as the material, and all this as accompaniment to the fish,
flesh and fowl, and the usual liquid beverage of the breakfast table.

   Westover, the third (?) station selected by the English colonists, is
like Weyanoke, a presque isle.  The estate had been recently purchased
by Mr. Robert Douthat.  The house had originally been the most splendid
probably on the river, and was still a magnificent mansion.  In the
garden is a marble monumental ornament, with sculptured urns, shields
and coats-of-arms; and an inscription commemorating the Hon. William
Bryd, former owner of this and other great estates in Virginia.  He died
in 1744.  Having been educated in England, he enjoyned the friendship
of the great of that day, and was, after his return, president of his
Majesty's Council for the Colony.  He inherited his estates from his
father, who lies buried, with others of his family, in a

Page 101.

large walled cemetery on the estate.  The son of the president of the
council [the third William Byrd] was likewise educated in England, or
at home; is said to have been an accomplished gentleman one consequence
of his home bred education; another was that he became famous for losing
10,000 guineas on one cast of the die; and the result is that the fourth
generation are in comparative poverty, and have sold the estate and
palace to one who begins a new dynasty, and calls America his home.

   Discerning men have expressed astonishment at the servile adulation 
which Americans pay to the customs and opinions of England.  It is an evil
which has been planted in our courts of justice; but, with wigs and gowns,
is giving way to common sense and the democratic principle; yet it shows
itself mischievously even in our legislative councils, although our
constitution of government is opposed to monarchy and aristocracy, but it is
to be wondered at, when we recollect that men yet live who were taught in
infancy to reverence the king next to God, and to obey him implicitly, and
"all in authority under him", and that, up to this day we look to England
for all our books, and fear to praise (almost to read) one of native growth,
until some hireling English or Scotch reviewer has stamped it with the seal
of his approbation?

   At the time when the elder Mr. Byrd built his palace at Westover not
only a man's opinions, but the bricks and stone and wood work of an American
gentlemen's house, were imported from England (?!),* and if the colonists
had not resisted the usurpations of the English aristocracy, we might at 
this time have sent our cotton and wool, our leather and fur, as well as our
thoughts, to that country, to be worked over before we were permitted to use
them.

   There were more costly magnificence in and about the house at Westover
than I had seen anywhere in our country, but all had become dilapidated, 
and was under the repairing hand of the present possessor.  The wall which
surrounded the house was entered through gates of lofty iron rail work; the
brick pillars were ornamented with eagles, globes, vases, and other well-
executed sculptures, all brought from home.  The house is large
__________________________________________________________________________
   *This is about the earliest statement of the myth that the bricks of
American houses were brought from England.

Page 102.

and heavy, with spacious hall and staircase.  The rooms high and wainscoted
from the floors to the highly decorated ceilings.  All the sculptured work,
and, in fact, every other part, of well wrought, was, at that time neces-
sarily imported.  The situation of the house was well chosen, commanding
extensive views of the superb river, the opposite shores, and the surround-
ing plantation.  The buildings on the Westover estate, beside the mansion
house, consist of fourteen brick houses and several framed ones of wood.  
The dwelling place for the dead has been judiciously walled in, at a due
distance from that of the living, who are to rest there and out of sight.
I visited it one cold morning, and copied some of the inscriptions.  It is
not an uninteresting fact to Americans that the first husband of Mrs.
Washington (Mr. Custis)* had been intended, by his father, as the husband
of one of this Byrd family, Col. Byrd, of Westover being at that time - 
"from his influence and vast possessions - almost a Count Palatine of
Virginia."

   At Weyanoke was a son+ of Chief Justice Marshall, and his wife, a
daughter of Mr. Lewis, with occasionally other visitors.  I remained among
these hospitable and excellent people, sometimes at Douthat's and sometimes
at Lewis's, until the 7th of March, and painted several portraits, etc.
_________________________________________________________________________
   *Daniel Parke Custis married Martha Dandridge, daughter of Col. John
Dandridge.  She married, secondly, Gen. George Washington.
   +This was Thomas Marshall, who married Margaret Lewis.